I really dont know now

[Fatty McGee]

series 1..nothing to chase
black diamond..never holds value..same old design year after year..no autos..no fun
panini- autos, memorabillia, low cost..doesn't hold as much value as UD but who cares..as long as the cards look great and they usually do,.

What this guy said. And to top it all off, looks like no hockey this year, so why would you get any UD Series 1 or BD when you're basically just over paying for a product that now will have ZERO value due to the fact that the "Rookies" are all going to be scrubs who may never play in the NHL ever again?

I remember the UD product from the past lock-out season. There was only one series of UD and the RC's were a complete joke, but the boxes were LOADED with amazing hits, due to a severe cut back in production. Doesn't look like that's happening this year, so I'm most likely going to stay away from 100% of product, regardless of the company.

[jim bradt]

Thanks for all the replies so far. Down to 2 options as of this post. Either a box of Panini Certified or just buy some singles of game used I need/like.

Keep the replies coming and thanks again.

[JVW]

BUT, if you can't resist the temptation to buy a box, my vote would have to be for Certified right now. My rationale is because of the vastness of what there is to find in Certified, definitely not because it offers the first auto/gu RCs of the season. For me, it's the rarer sub-sets that make Certified a treat.

Check out this Legends Auto sub-set I put together from the 10-11 release of Certified. There's no way I'd be able to put something similar together if I was looking at UD1 or BD.

I like what you put together here. This is what I think collecting should be all about. Pick something you like and try to complete the "set". But "set" can mean "subset"; not the master set. Certified has a lot more interesting subsets than UD S1 or Black Diamond. If you like autos, numbered cards, memorabilla, or even a nice base set...Certified has it all!

[mooneyes]

I am a bit biased as I really love the design of Artifacts, so that would be my option "D". The base rc's are # plus low # parallels look really cool, so their value won't decline like YG's, and bonus of Team Canada and Allstar JS/patches with autographs like Beliveau, 99, Sakic etc make it a lot of fun!